WMO President's - Visit to Pakistan and India - World Memon ...

THOUGHT PROVOKING
The
perfect
manager
“What’s the point of getting a degree
if you’re just going to sit at home
after marriage?” This is a common
point of view in our society
and some people even feel that girls who
don’t intend to work after marriage should
not take up precious seats in colleges and
universities.
However, the question is, is a degree
only about getting a job? Doesn’t education
nurture and develop a person’s thought
processes and personality? And doesn’t a
housewife or home maker as she is correctly
called now need the benefit of education as
much, or perhaps even more than a career
person?
The management of a home is in many
ways similar to the management of an
organisation. The only difference is that in
an organisation, people have well defined
job descriptions and are responsible for
performing their own specific tasks: a home
maker has multiple responsibilities, no specific
job description and worst of all, doesn’t
even get the acknowledgement she deserves.
Just take a look at the skills a homemaker
employs during the course of a day.
Time management
Who can manage time as perfectly as housewives?
In the morning, they have to wakeup
before the rest of the family, arrange breakfast,
wake up the children and help them
get ready for school, pack their lunchboxes
and make sure they don’t keep the school
van waiting then they get their husband’s
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breakfast organized and see him off. During
the course of the day they have to juggle
outdoor chores with all the cooking, cleaning
and other responsibilities of running
a house, keeping everything running like
clockwork.
Supervision
“My wife doesn’t have to do anything,
she’s got a bunch of servants,” says many a
husband, derisively. He forgets that even the
best of servants need supervision which is
a momentous task in itself. No matter who
cooks the food, washes the dishes, cleans
the house and does the laundry, it is the
wife’s responsibility to see that everything is
done well and on time.
Management
Anyone who manages a team of workers
can appreciate the skills required to keep a
number of individuals happy and productive.
Managing a team of servants is no
different and only a home maker knows
how difficult it is to soothe an irate cook,
discipline a lazy maid and settle an ongoing
feud between the gardener and the chowkidar.
Training
Taking raw talent and developing it into a
skilled resource is a rare skill and pays rich
dividends in the corporate world. Home
makers, however, hardly get any acknowledgment
for teaching raw recruits to cook,
clean and perform all kinds of house hold
chores to perfection. Nor do they have the
advantage of binding contracts, so the maid
they have spent so much time and effort on
training will leave their employment as soon
as she finds a better job.
Finance manager
A home maker may not be earning the
bread but she knows how to slice it so that
it lasts as long as possible. When it comes to
managing money, it’s often the stay-at-home
wife who has a better grasp of the realities
of finance than her banker husband. She
budgets, she saves, she hunts down the best
deals. Research proves that, while women
are stereotyped as being shopaholics, it’s
mainly the men who blow huge amounts
on big ticket items while women save for a
rainy day
Multi-tasking
Homemakers have tremendous ability to
multitask and efficiently juggle several
chores at the same time. In the morning,
while cooking breakfast for the family she
is also helping the children get ready for
school. In the meantime, she is also looking
after her husband who has to leave for the
office. In the afternoon, while cooking, she
is also helping her child with homework;
while ironing she’s watching TV or catching
up on phone calls.
Any one who feels that a stay-at-home
wife and mother has an easy life should take
a week off from work and try it themselves.
They will soon realize their mistake.
MEMON ALAM APRIL 2011